The UVic Writer's Guide

Paragraphs That Define

In most essays there are terms to be defined. An expository paragraph
may be the beginning of a more complex argument, like this:

Sukiyaki (pronounced by the Japanese in three sylllables with
no accent--shee-yah-kee) is the dish that has proved most popular
among American visitors to Japan. It is not, as it is sometimes
described, a Japanese imitation of chop suey, but is a native
concoction with a long and honorable history. Its ingredients
may vary, but they consist usually of raw beef sliced paper-thin,
onions, spinach, bamboo shoots, mushrooms, bean curd, and a kind
of gelatinous noodle, with sugar and rice wine and soy sauce as
seasonings. It is the cooking and eating of sukiyaki, however,
rather than the food itself, that makes it an experience to remember.
The guests gather round a thick skillet set on a charcoal burner,
and the raw ingredients (brought in beautifully arranged on a
huge plate, for the Japanese believe in eating first with their
eyes) are cooked in their presence. After part of the food has
been allowed to simmer with its seasonings for a tantalizing while,
the guests reach into the common skillet with their chopsticks,
taking out whatever pieces please them and dipping them into a
beaten raw egg. Sukiyaki is not just a food, it is a social experience;
for all evening long the guests sit around the pan "cooking and
eating," as the Japanese say, "and eating and cooking."